My name is Krishna. I’m the Vice Chair of the City of Irvine’s Green Ribbon Environmental Committee (appointed by Irvine City Councilmember and Committee Chair Melissa Fox). The Green Ribbon Committee is an official advisory committee to the Irvine City Council, and we meet four times a year to discuss potential policies and make recommendations to the city council.

This Wednesday, February 21st, we will be meeting at 4:30 PM at Las Lomas Community Park (10 Federation Way). We’ll be having a presentation by city staff on Active Transportation (related to biking, skating, rollerblading, and other forms of human-powered transport) and Mobility.

We will also get an update on charging stations for EV vehicles in Irvine.

In addition, we have subcommittees relating to Active Transportation, Energy Development, and Green Infrastructure.

If you’d like to get involved and share your ideas related to these policy areas, please consider meeting us at the committee meeting!

Irvine’s Green Ribbon Environmental Committee seeks to increase public participation in energy conservation and sustainable practices, helping the City serve the community through advancing environmental policy initiatives and programs. The Committee is supported by the Public Works Department. Comprised of 10 members, the committee is an advisory body to the City Council and provides advice on sustainability policies related to energy, recycling and waste management, mobility, open space and water issues.

We have a lot of exciting things moving along the pipeline, including a Request For Proposals for developing a feasibility study and technical assessment of Community Choice Energy, a means of allowing the city to purchase clean energy at a 3-7% savings on average.

Irvine Councilmember Melissa Fox appointed me to the City’s new Irvine Transportation Commission in May of 2017. One of the missions of the Transportation Commission is to the advise the Planning Commission and the City Council on the traffic impacts of new development applications.

Another task for the Commission is to work with City staff on ways to improve traffic flow in Irvine.

Ken Montgomery Chair, irvine Transportation Commission

One way to reduce single occupant vehicle trips in Irvine is to increase the amount of people who will use a bicycle for their short trips around town when it is practical.

Most of Irvine’s streets have bicycle lanes. Most of Irvine’s traffic signals have video detection cameras mounted on the mast arms. These cameras detect when there is a bicycle waiting at the red light. You don’t even have to push the bicycle push button anymore if you don’t want to. In Irvine you can legally ride on sidewalks, but you must yield to pedestrians. Thus, on the few streets where there are no bike lanes, you can ride on the sidewalks legally.

I ride all over Irvine everyday on my electric bike and I can get to every place in Irvine conveniently.

I know there are a few streets that have no bike lanes with narrow sidewalks like MacArthur near the airport, but for the most part I can ride a bike to any shopping center, professional office building, or recreational center or park in town.

The problem comes when you try to lock up your bike at one of these destinations!

Many private properties with big parking lots for cars have no bike racks. I frequently have to lock up to a handicap parking sign pole or a trash can with openings big enough for my cable bike lock. Sometimes a destination will have a bike rack somewhere out of view, where no one can see the bike thief with the bolt cutters. This lack of bicycle parking often defeats the purpose of riding a bike if you can’t secure it properly.

The City requires new developments to have bike racks, but these racks often disappear after a few years or are relocated to an out of the way location. I feel that if I ride a bike, I should be able to lock up close to the building’s entry, not 500’ away.

The City is making efforts to get businesses to voluntarily provide bike racks near their building entries, but with over 25,000 businesses in Irvine, progress will be slow. I encourage bike riders to let the business that you visit on your bike know that well placed bike racks is the “right thing to do” on many levels (customer service, environment, health).

The Transportation Commission meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month in the City Council Chambers at 5:30 pm. I strongly encourage Irvine residents to bring any traffic concerns, ideas or comments to the Commission meeting. You will be welcomed to speak at the beginning of the meeting. The full City traffic engineering staff attends these meetings and they will hear your ideas and can respond to your questions. Check here for Transportation Commission agendas. The public is welcome to speak on all agenda items as well as non agenda related comments.

If you can’t wait for the next meeting, feel free to email me your questions, comments and ideas about transportation and traffic in Irvine. I will forward your comments to the appropriate City staff member.

Let’s work together to improve Irvine’s traffic and make Irvine an even better place to ride our bikes!

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service.

Taking place each year on the third Monday in January, the MLK Day of Service is the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service – a “day on, not a day off.” It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national and community problems.

On January 13, 1903, a group of 102 Korean laborers arrived in Honolulu from Japan aboard the steamship RMS Gaelic to work in the Hawaiian sugar cane fields. This date is traditionally regarded as marking the first Korean immigration to the United States and celebrated as Korean American Day — although several individual Koreans had immigrated to the United States earlier, including Philip Jaisohn (Seo Jae-pil), a journalist and medical doctor and a noted champion for Korea’s independence, who in 1890 became the first Korean to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

At our City Council meeting on Tuesday, January 9, we issued a Korean-American Day Proclamation, celebrating “the long and prosperous journey of Korean Americans in the United States” due to their “strong family ties, community support, and hard work.” Accepting the proclamation on behalf of the Korean American community were a number of Irvine Korean American civic leaders, including my friend and appointee to the Irvine Senior Council, Juneu Kim.

From these humble beginnings, a large and vibrant Korean American community has grown, now numbering nearly 2 million people of Korean descent in the United States, including nearly half a million people in California.

Irvine is proud to celebrate our thriving Korean American community each year in our annual Irvine Korean Cultural Festival, designed to share Korean culture with the entire community by showcasing its customs, heritage, arts and cuisine.

As the daughter of a Korean War combat veteran, the cousin of a United States Marine who was killed in action in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, and as a resident of Irvine, I feel a deep connection to Korea and a deep appreciation for the vital contributions that Korean Americans have made to our city, our state, and our nation.

I am proud to live and serve on the City Council in a city that celebrates and treasures our Korean American community and I join my Korean American friends and neighbors in celebrating Korean American contributions to our shared American heritage and way of life.

Happy Korean American Day!

Councilmember Melissa Fox with her father, Korean War veteran Stan Kay, and other Korean War veterans.

“Tennis is mostly mental. Of course, you must have a lot of physical skill, but you can’t play tennis well and not be a good thinker. You win or lose the match before you even go out there.” — Venus Williams

“Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.” — Billie Jean King

“Life is like a tennis game. You can’t win without serving.” — Arthur Ashe

I’m proud to announce that Tennis IndustryMagazine has named Irvine’s Community Services Department as Park & Rec Agency of the Year for 2017.

“For the last 14 years, Steve Riggs has been the tennis director for the city of Irvine, Calif., overseeing one of the top city-run tennis programs in the country. Riggs is in charge of 91 public tennis courts (all with lights) at 19 facilities, including the brand-new, 25-court Orange County Great Park Sports Complex. On weekends, he also oversees 31 courts at four high schools.

‘At first, I wasn’t happy about having all these neighborhood parks,’ Riggs says. ‘But for customer service, it’s actually better. It’s easy for kids, for instance, to get to nearby courts.’

The courts are free to play on, but Riggs says programming brings in about $1.8 million from lessons, clinics, leagues and tournaments. ‘As a city-run program,’ he says, ‘we’re lucky to be in a strong tennis community.’

That’s why the city of Irvine’s Community Services Department is Tennis Industry’s 2017 Park & Rec Agency of the Year.

Riggs is quick to credit the 24 full-time teaching pros for the success. ‘Our program is built on our pros,’ he says. ‘If they don’t do a good job, then you don’t have a good program. I have a great staff—many have been here for many years — and they make it all go’.”

“When it comes to giving back to the Southern California junior tennis community, few can match Steve Riggs’ dedication and drive to make life better tennis players. Riggs, the Director of Programming and Tennis for the City of Irvine, has a passion to share his love of the sport with all. This year, the highlights include organizing two coaching education seminars (January and June) and a new four-tournament Grand Slam Round Robin series for novice level juniors.

Riggs is a certified teaching pro, tournament organizer, and community advocate. He has been a leader in the Southern California tennis world for the past 25 years, and based in Orange County since 2004. During that time he has run So Cal junior tournaments at every level from novice to national. Other past accomplishments include being a JTT Area League Coordinator, and a member of the SCTA Advocacy and Red-Orange-Green (ROG) Committees.

When the USTA introduced the 10-and-Under Tennis program, Riggs was one of the first to step up and offer Red-Orange-Green (ROG) Events for kids. He currently offers an innovative 4- tournament ROG Grand Slam Round Robin Circuit in 2016, which highlights the Australian, French, British and U.S. Opens respectively at each event.

Tennis education is also very important to Riggs. For the past eight years, he has offered a variety of seminars on various topics for adults and juniors. ‘I’m happy to be in a position to give players, parents and coaches at all levels a taste of fun and competitive tennis as well as great information,’ Riggs said. ‘All it takes is a few good ideas and the time to plan them. I have an outstanding staff and together we make things happen’.”

The City of Irvine has 91 public tennis courts and offers beginning, advanced beginning, intermediate or advanced level tennis lessons, leagues and tournaments for youth, adults and seniors.

The new tennis courts at the Orange County Great Park Sports Park.

The newly opened Sports Complex at the Great Park has a new Tennis Center that includes a championship tennis court with seating for 132 spectators and an additional 24 lighted tennis courts.

It also includes a conference room, concession area, restrooms, and City athletics offices.

These new Great Park tennis courts offer space for kids camps and lessons, adult team workouts, recreational programs, and the Brymer Lewis Tennis Academy, as well as leagues, match play and championship tournaments.

Drop-in courts are also available daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information about tennis at the Great Park, call the Tennis Center at 949-724-6400 or email tennis@cityofirvine.org.

I am proud to serve on the City Council that is finally fulfilling the promise of a truly Great Park for the residents of Irvine and Orange County!

In Irvine, we are proud of saying that our city is not only among the most diverse cities in the nation, it is also the most fully integrated.

There are no ethnic, linguistic, religious, or cultural enclaves in Irvine: every neighborhood reflects Irvine’s ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity.

How diverse is Irvine? A non-English language is spoken in a remarkable 58% of Irvine homes, with more than 70 different languages spoken in residences throughout Irvine. Nearly 40 % of Irvine’s public school students have a primary language other than English.

Irvine is also home to more than 80 different churches, mosques, synagogues and other places of worship, serving Irvine’s wonderful cultural and religious diversity.

But sometimes we face prejudice in Irvine.

That’s what happened recently when a young African-American boy was teased at school because of the color of skin.

His mother, Kourtney McGowen, was understandably hurt and upset and reached out on social media to other Irvine moms.

I’m proud of my community to say that the response she received was 100% love.

Kourtney then decided to create a “diversity play date” at an Irvine park to share — and celebrate — our diversity.

Here is how Kourtney describes what happened:

“It all started with Johnathan sharing his experiences at school with me. He told me that children were calling him names because of his skin color. As a mom of course I tried to make him feel better about being black by purchasing books, watching certain movies and talking to him about it. I even reached out to the school leadership. But his peers quickly diminished what confidence he had just gained.

I then decided to vent to my Irvine moms group on Facebook and share my concern and frustration. I even went as far as saying ‘please teach your children to accept other children that look different than they do, it starts at home.’ I wasn’t sure how the response would be. But, to my surprise, the post went viral. I had many moms express how sorry they were, private message me for play dates and share their own similar experiences with the same thing! I felt like this was an opportunity to make a difference so I went for it!

I am now planning a play date for the entire community and calling it “Celebrate Diversity”. To my surprise so many families got excited and I have over 84 saying they’re going. I now have the City Councilwoman Melissa Fox of Irvine as well as the Irvine Community Service Commissioner Lauren Johnson-Norris co-hosting this event with me! It will be next Sunday January 14th at 2:00pm. I plan to go live on Facebook for a portion of the event.

This is just another example of how one voice can make change happen. How are we using our voices? For change? Or for gossip? So excited for this opportunity!”

Description: “All ages are welcomed! Come bring your kiddos dressed in cultural clothing (if you’d like) and their favorite snack to share! This is an opportunity for us as parents to bring awareness to an ongoing issue of separating by race, culture, religion, skin color. Please join me in bringing our little ones together to encourage acceptance of others! Can’t wait to see you all!”

As a member of the Irvine City Council, I am extremely proud of our city for surrounding Kourtney McGowan and her son with so much love and delighted to co-host this event together with Kourtney and Community Services Commissioner Lauren Johnson-Norris.

I am also tremendously impressed by how Kourtney McGowan turned a negative incident into a positive learning and sharing experience for our whole community!

I held a public Town Hall Meeting at the Irvine Championship Stadium in the Great Park on Saturday, October 21, where we discussed traffic, childcare, the Southern California Veterans Cemetery, affordable housing, and other issues of interest to Irvine residents.

I was joined by several of my city commissioners, as well as by members of the Irvine Police Department, who were also there to answer questions.

Several dozen Irvine residents spoke and asked questions, and I thank everyone who attended.

Here are some photos from the event:

I really enjoyed the open, public dialogue with Irvine residents, and I intend to make these Town Hall Meetings a regular part of my work as an Irvine City Councilmember.

Irvine Community Services Commissioner Melissa Fox speaks to City Council on behalf of OC veterans, urging the City Council to set aside land in the Great Park as a final resting place for Orange County veterans